Chinese woman stashes $1,600 life savings in cupboard, loses most of it to hungry termites

Poor Cai Hou’s mistrust of banks has cost her dearly after termites nibbled on her life savings, rendering most of it unspendable…

Did you hear the one about the Chinese woman who stashed her life savings in a cupboard because she doesn’t trust banks??

No, well it might sound like the opening line to a joke but this time it’s actually true and the poor woman has been left devastated after bloody termites devoured her cash! If only she had gone to Trusted Pest Management and had a termite inspection, she would have probably been ok.

Imagine if you tried to cut this pattern with scissors

Cai Hou, 70, was stunned and heart broken on Aug. 19 when she discovered that the majority of her 10,000 Yuan nest egg — or about $1,700 — had been eaten by the cheeky little critters.

“I’d never trusted banks and I always thought it would be safer to hide the cash in a safe place at home. How wrong could I be?”

Hou, from Jinjiang in China’s Fujian province, managed to piece together 5,900 Yuan — or about $1,030 — of her cash. She took the nibbled notes to two local banks but stingy officials would only verify about $339, the rest, were too damaged to be accepted.

Munch, munch, munch, munch!

Cai Hou is reported to have said:

“They said so much was missing that they couldn’t be certain they had ever been banknotes at all let alone the value of them,”

“I suppose we are lucky to get anything back,” she added. “It’s certainly taught me a lesson, and all the money I have left went straight back into the bank in my new account.”

Very intricate!

So her mistrust of banks has cost her dearly. But now she’s happy with her new bank account, even though they only gave her $339 out of the $1,000 that she had. I guess that’s fair enough as money most certainly doesn’t grow on trees! Good job actually as the termites would eat it all. Just a thought… I wonder why she didn’t check the money more regularly?

We get a pest and termite inspection done annually here at the Fast House , do you?

Hey there, Fast Lane Dad here. I'm a Daddy Blogger who's telling cyberspace how I am bringing up our 3 boys, with the help of Fast Lane Mum of course! It might not be pretty sometimes, but that's life. Welcome to the Fast Lane.